c-span: you write about dan rather's $36-million, 10-year contract? >> guest: yes. c-span: did all that get under you skin? >> guest: not really because by the time that rather was commanding that kind of salary, we had passed the million dollar mark and the star system was so much a part of the institution now that it was just more fun and games. people like myself -- we were line correspondents and we were the people you dropped in anywhere in the world and said, "get a story." that's what we did for a living we didn't read for a living. we didn't vent the news or act the news for a living or talk to other people on the set and interact. we went out and got stories. we wrote stories and we reported them, so we did something different for a living, i feel. c-span: let me ask you a question. i'll ask you and see if you have the answer. today, if there was a vietnam war and you were a correspondent over there or there was any correspondent over there, what would the salary be? >> guest: for a line correspondent? c-span: yes. >> guest: it's a little bit difficult to t